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Voice of football: Sepp Blatter
Published on Sun, Apr 22, 2007 at 18:25, Updated on Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 11:32 in Sports section
Tags: Football, Fifa , Sanjeeb Mukherjea
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Sanjeeb Mukherjea: Today I have with me one of the most influential and powerful persons in international sport, the President of FIFA Mr Jeseph Sepp Blatter. Mr Blatter, first of all welcome to CNN-IBN. First thing I must ask you is that when was the last time you had a holiday?
Sepp Blatter: This is a question I cannot answer because I’m not a holiday man. From time to time, I take three days off. I did it over the Easter festivities, because I’m Catholic. I don’t remember when I’m in the holidays because I don’t know what holidays mean to me.
Sanjeeb Mukherjea: You have been to India in the late 70s and in 1982 during the Asian Games. This is your third visit after 25 years. What is exactly your vision of Indian football in the years to come?
Sepp Blatter: In the years to come I have a vision, but what I have seen now is that what India need is help. They need to wake the "sleeping giant" up now, because Indian football at a certain time was a very important part during the Asian Cup in 1961 or 1962. But now, where is the Indian national team? Where are the Indian clubs?
Therefore, something must be done. We have realised in FIFA when going into the geographical map, that we have neglected, I have to say, we have neglected the 'giant' India a little bit, also the sub-continent, with more than 1 billion people. We are coming a little bit late, but then we will have more speed to go forward in a project which is called "Win in India with India".
We will do it together. We have the Asian Football Confederation, they have their “Vision Asia” which has started here, grassroots football. Together with India, we will have to do it. But not only with football, we need the support from all other components. This is our society finally - social, culture, economy and politics - everybody shall be together and we need people to support it, because we are suffering here for the popularity of another sport called cricket.
Sanjeeb Mukherjea: Perhaps that Mr Blatter is the right way forward. But in the first couple of days during your visit in India, you were in Kolkata, the City of Joy, which is also called the Mecca of Indian football. You have seen those thousands of kids, thousands of people with outstretched hands trying to touch you, chanting your name, supporting your visit there. What is the sense of passion that you have got about Indian football?
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